Sending email using Amazon SES with Classic ASP

I recently needed to change a client's website to send emails using Amazon SES and encountered a few issues.

The client's code was using jMail COM component but I couldn't make this work, most likely because Amazon SES requires use of TLS and I could not find how to enable this in jMail, if it supports it at all.

So the solution was to change to CDOSYS, but this required some experimentation before it would work.

Some of the errors I received along the way were:

• The server rejected the sender address
• The server response was: 530 Authentication required
• 530 Must issue a STARTTLS command first

To use CDOSYS with Amazon SES you must specify a remote server, authenticate using basic authentication, use port 25, and use SSL (not TLS as I attempted).

This sample code worked for me. You will of course need to include your own Amazon SES SMTP login details, server name, and verified sender address.

Dim objMessage
Set objMessage = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
objMessage.Subject = "Your subject"
objMessage.From = "test@exampledomain.com"
objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2
objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") = "email-smtp.us-west-2.amazonaws.com" 'Change if using a different Amazon SES server
objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpauthenticate") = 1
objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusername") = "Your Amazon SES SMTP username, usually starts with AKI..."
objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendpassword") = "Your Amazon SES SMTP password"
objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserverport") = 25
objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpusessl") = True
objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Update
objMessage.TextBody = "This is a test email"
objMessage.To = "success@simulator.amazonses.com"

On Error Resume Next
objMessage.Send

If Err.Number = 0 Then
	Response.Write("OK")
Else
	Response.Write("FAIL: " + Err.Description)
End If